Westley

We.... sorta used up all our tissues.... for other purposes.....

And it started off as such a nice post too... a shame.

Arcana... your mind scares me sometimes.

I sure hope you're making over 100K, because you're sure worth more than that.

Bah, I wrote a whole long spiel that I spent a couple hours thinking up and no one even comments on it? Blah!

The F is important.

It is the difference between a Defender acting as a tank, and someone doing a tank in the rear.

The F is important.

I'm going to post something here that's completely relevant to this that I posted over on the Unleashed boards:

The Fallacy of Perpetual Growth

This is the cause of many of the failings of the modern world. It is a function of greed. It is the concept that has been pushed out by MBAs (Masters of Business Administration) and slowly infected into every publicly owned business like a disease. It's the fallacy of perpetual growth.

If you have ever worked for ANY public company in any kind of position higher than entry level, you've seen this in one form or another. Metrics, bean counters, that all say "THIS quarter must have better numbers than LAST quarter!" and "THIS quarter must have better numbers than the same quarter last year!".

That is the fallacy of perpetual growth. You also see this in the government. In fact, social security is BASED on the concept that there will always be a larger and larger working class to pay for the ever growing retired class.

But it is indeed a fallacy, IT'S NOT THE WAY REALITY WORKS. Things ebb and flow, the economy ebbs and flows, business success and consumer purchasing ebbs and flows. Business should fluctuate WITH it.

This is why the most stable companies that exist today are sole-proprietor companies or family owned businesses. Oh sure, most of them are not huge and most of them are not global. Hell, very few are even national. But they are ALWAYS THERE.

Why? Because when one person or a small group has a personal stake in the company, they don't have to be beholden to stockholders and the fallacy of constant growth. If my company profited 100K net last year, and this year is a "tough" year, I don't HAVE to drive for 125K or 150K or even 100K... I can be happy with LESS. I can be happy making a MEASLY profit as long as we stay stable and stay in business and don't lose money. I can take the LONG view.

If I don't have the money to increase my business, I can WAIT and SAVE the money and buy expansions outright in my own time. The growth of my business can be related to the success of my business. If I'm doing poorly and have a small franchise, I can cut one or two stores out and sell them off and keep the rest operating the same way. I don't have to cut corners everywhere and stress every one of my employees out. I don't HAVE to make them "do more with less".

Public companies can't do that. They are pushed on all sides for ever increasing profits and ever expanding GROWTH of the company.

And do you know what I see happening? In every business that I've ever worked with? The company is becoming a behemoth monster, constantly growing in size, while at the same time eating itself from the inside out, until all that's left is a gigantic skeleton with no meat left... just scrawny bones that can collapse or any moment.

Or better yet, a better example is Jenga. Yes, Jenga.



THAT is the end result of the fallacy of perpetual growth. You pull from the bottom to feed the top and guess what's going to happen? Eventually, it's all going to tumble down.

So what do I suggest? Let all these companies wear themselves out and eat their infrastructure from the inside out. Let them topple and fall, and the smartest ones among them, the ones that have had to "make do with less" for years and years and years and learn how to be innovative to not lose their jobs.... when they finally lose their jobs because the entire business collapses... they can start their own business... and OWN it.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is.... the concept of the public company has failed in my opinion, and we need to go back to the concept of the private company.

Because private companies are not subject to the fallacy of perpetual growth.

I don't think that's new...

This thread should now be all about the deliciousness of Magic Bars.

Forget rep bars, I want some Magic Bars!

The positive one was from me. Because I'm an *******. Makes you wonder about how high my rep must be, huh?

I agree with merging the server list. I don't agree with merging the servers themselves.